As the climate warms and catastrophic wildfires become more common, land managers are seeking ways to reduce the risk of forest fires while maintaining forest health. A new pilot plan in Arizona hopes to accomplish this goal by selectively cutting some of the trees in the forest—a strategy known as thinning—and selling the felled timber as wood chips to South Korean buyers. …Besides climate change, the general consensus…is that the growth in catastrophic fires stems from decades of overzealous fire suppression. … The conclusion is that at least in the short term, proper forest thinning has the potential to drastically reduce not only fire danger but other threats as well. Hood and colleagues note that while thinning is highly effective in the short term, in the long term, forest health requires the restoration of a normal fire regime. If tree density isn’t maintained at a natural level, the whole process will need to be repeated.